Anonymous takes down government sites in massive anti-ACTA attack
Early Friday, several websites owned and operated by the US government were defaced as part of latest protest against online censorship. Anonymous, the elusive hacktivist group known for masterminding similar assaults, is taking credit. - At least half a dozen federal websites belonging to the United States government were disrupted in the latest Anonymous-led assault this week. The US Federal Trade Commission was the primary target of the infiltration, and along with it Anonymous managed to take down the sites for National Consumer Protection Week as well as the Consumer Protection Agency, the Federal Trade Commission and others. In place of the websites’ traditional homepages, Anonymous operatives left a message to the US government and other international bodies: world leaders should rethink the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA — an in-the-works agreement between more than a dozen major nations. Should ACTA pass, a new series of laws could crackdown on Internet freedom by internationally imposing sanctions on ISPs and casual web surfers who are alleged to engage in copyright infringement. In a missive posted on the homepages of the government sites, Anonymous warns that the passage of the bill would bring forth a firestorm of opposition from the hacktivists, who make claims to have already compromised a trove of data from federal employees linked to ACTA, including personal correspondence, passwords and bank account info.